Loch Ewe's wartime coast
Cove
A road-end Highland settlement where concrete gun houses, an Arctic Convoy memorial and the open Atlantic edge define the visit.
- Best for
- Arctic Convoy history and exposed coastal landscape
- Give it
- Time for the battery, memorial and nearby Loch Ewe stops
- Don't miss
- The two gun houses at Rubha nan Sasan
The Fox verdict
A remote road end with a powerful wartime story
Cove is sparse in amenities but rich in the surviving fabric and memory of Loch Ewe's Arctic Convoy years.
Begin at Rubha nan Sasan, where the principal coast-defence battery watched the loch entrance and a headland memorial recalls the convoys assembled here. Community food in Inverasdale and Poolewe, Inverewe's exotic planting and the Arctic Convoy Museum make useful additions away from the road end.
Where to go
Places in Cove
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesRubha nan Sasan Battery and Arctic Convoy Memorial
Loch Ewe's principal coast-defence battery retains two gun houses, searchlight positions, an observation post, engine rooms and magazines; the nearby convoy memorial was unveiled in 1999.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Rubha nan Sasan road end
- Access
- Take the hill track from the road-end car park and remain outside fenced areas.
Poolewe Hotel
A traditional Highland hotel, bar and restaurant whose bar lists Poolewe Lager, Belhaven Best, Belhaven Black and a changing guest real ale.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Poolewe, at the head of Loch Ewe
Arctic Convoy Museum
Displays include ships' instruments, uniforms, first-hand accounts and the last surviving Austin 8 NAAFI van; the memorial garden has 3,000 commemorative snowdrops.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Aultbea
- Access
- The exhibition is dog-friendly and has accessible toilets.
Food & drink
2 placesThe Old Schoolhouse, Inverasdale
A community tearoom serving homemade cakes, tea and coffee in the former Inverasdale primary school. Local residents formed the Wester Loch Ewe Trust in 2015, and the trust has since worked to restore the building as a community asset.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Inverasdale, on the road between Cove and Poolewe
Poolewe Village Store and Post Office
A licensed grocery and Post Office with Highland produce including Gairloch venison, nearby honey, local eggs, Ewe Brew real ale and locally tied fishing flies.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Poolewe
Walks & outdoors
1 placeInverewe
The National Trust for Scotland's 19th-century garden combines exotic planting and huge Californian redwoods with Inverewe House and the Sawyer Gallery.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Poolewe
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Three ways to explore Cove
Signature outings
Gun houses above Loch Ewe
Follow the short hill track to the two gun houses and the memorial on the headland where Loch Ewe's principal coast-defence battery watched the anchorage entrance.
Community cakes in Inverasdale
Stop for homemade cakes, tea or coffee in a former primary school revived by local residents as a community asset.
Redwoods beside Loch Ewe
Walk among exotic planting and huge Californian redwoods in the National Trust for Scotland's 19th-century Inverewe garden.
The village story
Cove Village Guide
At the end of Loch Ewe's western-shore road, Cove brings the Arctic Convoy story into stark focus.
The road end and the battery
The B8057 runs out at Rubha nan Sasan, where two concrete gun houses remain from the battery that overlooked the anchorage of Loch Ewe. The guns inside them were 6-inch Mk VII naval pieces taken from HMS Iron Duke, and they covered an examination vessel that checked the credentials of ships entering the anchorage. They never fired in anger. Around the gun houses stand searchlight positions, an observation post, engine rooms and magazines: the coast battery built here in 1941, now Scheduled Monument 5157 and among some of the most complete coastal defences in the United Kingdom.
This is where Cove ends. It sits at the seaward end of western Loch Ewe, reached by a single-track road along the water's western shore, and the drive in is the kind where passing places matter and you use them. There is no pub, conventional shop or church building in Cove itself. What Cove has is the coast, the light off the loch and the concrete.
Convoys and coastal walking
Between 1941 and 1945 Loch Ewe was the principal assembly base for the Arctic Convoys. As many as 95 ships lay in the loch at once, and at times the military outnumbered local residents three to one. The battery at Rubha nan Sasan was manned first by 308 Independent Coast Battery, then by 154 Independent Battery until the spring of 1944. Aerial photographs from 1946 show the bases of 27 accommodation huts; the huts themselves had already gone. On the headland a memorial to the convoys was unveiled by the Russian Convoy Club in 1999. Churchill called the route it commemorates "the worst journey in the world".
A short hill track from the road-end car park reaches the emplacements and the memorial. The full coastal round to Camas Mòr is a different proposition: 10.5 miles, up to six and a half hours, boggy and often pathless, with a crossing at the Abhainn na Leuma that can be impassable after rain. It passes low cliffs, shallow caves, ruined settlements and an open bothy before reaching a remote beach, but it is not the memorial stroll the car park might suggest. Sheep are usually present, so dogs need to be kept under close control. For something gentler, the Loch Kernsary round from Poolewe is six miles, with views towards Loch Maree and the Torridon hills.
The preaching cave and Poolewe stops
North of the village is a cave the Ordnance Survey recorded in 1875 as a church. It is about forty feet long and fifteen high, and a 1930 account describes a wooden pulpit, benches with bookboards and a partly built-up entrance. Its Gaelic name, Uamh nan Deargann, means Cave of the Fleas.
For food and supplies you drive back down the B8057 towards Poolewe. On the way, at Inverasdale, the former primary school opened in 1876 and served local children for 136 years; residents formed a trust in 2015 to revive it as the Old Schoolhouse, a community tearoom serving homemade cakes, tea and coffee. Poolewe is where the amenities collect. The village store holds a Post Office and sells Gairloch venison, Sea and Sole fish, Spindrift Croft eggs, honey from five miles away, Ewe Brew real ale and locally tied fishing flies. The Poolewe Hotel, in a building it dates to 1570, keeps Poolewe Lager, Belhaven Best and Belhaven Black on the bar alongside a changing guest ale. Bridge Cottage Art Café has a craft gallery upstairs.
Gardens, museum and the journey in
For a day out, Inverewe garden at Poolewe grows Californian redwoods and other exotic planting, with otters and seals off the shore. The Arctic Convoy Museum at Aultbea keeps a doorplate from the Tirpitz, a U-255 signal pennant, and the last surviving Austin 8 NAAFI van, named Bertie, still holding its tea urn and radio. Its memorial garden has three thousand snowdrops, one for each Allied serviceman lost in the Arctic seas.
You will need a car to reach Cove's road end; a bus reaches Poolewe, but no public transport serves the walk start. The railhead is at Achnasheen, unstaffed, with a waiting room and a four-space car park. But what stays with you is the road running out at the headland, the two grey gun houses watching an empty loch, and the snowdrops counting the men who never came back.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Rubha nan Sasan Battery and Arctic Convoy Memorial — her.highland.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- The Old Schoolhouse, Inverasdale — oldschoolhouseinverasdale.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Poolewe Village Store and Post Office — poolewevillagestore.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Poolewe Hotel — poolewehotel.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Inverewe — nts.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Arctic Convoy Museum — arcticconvoymuseum.org operator, sector body or destination organisation